Stretching things out with the Winch, Rope controls, and Flex Lights
VERSION 0.245 CHANGELIST
Added new part: Winch
Added rope extend/contract controls
Added new part: Flex Light
Added repeat count parameter for Flex Panel (repeats along Width axis)
Added 5 new styles for Flex Panel
Added new small part: Ultra Heavy S
Slightly tweaked Center of Mass (again, sorry) to fix issues with variable mass and multi-collider parts (mass remains unchanged)
Added wrecking ball mass adjustments
Increased Fixed Bombs max strength to 6 (reminder: Strength on Fixed Bombs only affects the damage it takes to explode, not damage/range/etc)
Increased max mass setting for Ultra Heavy/Steel Orb/etc
Improved grass/rock generation for large maps
Fixed dead/inactive flex connections drawing
Fixed pistons not using their sound overrides
Adjusted rope compute shader so it has less obvious twisting (when ropes are vertical)
Fixed rocket gravity settings with game speed set to anything besides 1.0x
Fixed Bomb launcher aerial timer (both versions) and delay time (S version)
Fixed Overdrive S not working for some parts (depending on the order of parts in the vehicle)
Made Overdrive S draw lines on the side
Changed ground plane levels (Desert Test) to use a dynamic mesh collider that follows the player (in addition to the giant plane)
- This makes walkers like Hex Storm more consistent in top speed
Fixed spread of bomb launcher being affected by aerial timer
Fixed (I think) tread belts no appearing if you start too far forward/back from the origin
Fixed some parts getting 2000kg added to them from enabling a checkbox (Wave Generator + Sequencer in particular)
Changed default flex tread values to be better
The big new part for today, and possibly the last major new part for a while, is the Winch. It uses a combination of an invisible joint and a resizable rope to create the winch. Like other ropes, it does have some limits on how much weight it can hold without getting a bit wonky, but you can always use more than one for bigger loads.
To make the Winch work, I had to tweak the rope resizing code a bit. It's a bit better overall I think, but adjusting how ropes work is always a bit iffy. Rather than worry too much, I decided to also add optional controls to regular ropes so they can be expanded/contracted. This kind of makes the Winch not as necessary for many builds, but I'd rather have more functionality/flexibility than less. Speaking of ropes, the Hook Launcher also got a bit of tweaking so that it works with the new rope resizing code.
The other part I think people will be excited about is the Flex Light. It's based on the Flex Panel (which also got a couple separate improvements), and it should be a nice improvement for making glowy lines/etc without having to use weird tricks/etc.
There were a number of other tweaks, particularly regarding part masses. There are a few more parts I'd like to add, but they aren't too important, and at this point I need to move on, so they'll be shuffled off 'til an update beyond the big campaign changes.
There's a lot to do for the campaign, and I'm not sure what I'll work on next. I need to do some AI enemies, but there are so many maps/missions to create that I may do a few of those first. Either way, I would expect this to the be last significant update for a bit.
Added new part: Winch
Added rope extend/contract controls
Added new part: Flex Light
Added repeat count parameter for Flex Panel (repeats along Width axis)
Added 5 new styles for Flex Panel
Added new small part: Ultra Heavy S
Slightly tweaked Center of Mass (again, sorry) to fix issues with variable mass and multi-collider parts (mass remains unchanged)
Added wrecking ball mass adjustments
Increased Fixed Bombs max strength to 6 (reminder: Strength on Fixed Bombs only affects the damage it takes to explode, not damage/range/etc)
Increased max mass setting for Ultra Heavy/Steel Orb/etc
Improved grass/rock generation for large maps
Fixed dead/inactive flex connections drawing
Fixed pistons not using their sound overrides
Adjusted rope compute shader so it has less obvious twisting (when ropes are vertical)
Fixed rocket gravity settings with game speed set to anything besides 1.0x
Fixed Bomb launcher aerial timer (both versions) and delay time (S version)
Fixed Overdrive S not working for some parts (depending on the order of parts in the vehicle)
Made Overdrive S draw lines on the side
Changed ground plane levels (Desert Test) to use a dynamic mesh collider that follows the player (in addition to the giant plane)
- This makes walkers like Hex Storm more consistent in top speed
Fixed spread of bomb launcher being affected by aerial timer
Fixed (I think) tread belts no appearing if you start too far forward/back from the origin
Fixed some parts getting 2000kg added to them from enabling a checkbox (Wave Generator + Sequencer in particular)
Changed default flex tread values to be better
The big new part for today, and possibly the last major new part for a while, is the Winch. It uses a combination of an invisible joint and a resizable rope to create the winch. Like other ropes, it does have some limits on how much weight it can hold without getting a bit wonky, but you can always use more than one for bigger loads.
To make the Winch work, I had to tweak the rope resizing code a bit. It's a bit better overall I think, but adjusting how ropes work is always a bit iffy. Rather than worry too much, I decided to also add optional controls to regular ropes so they can be expanded/contracted. This kind of makes the Winch not as necessary for many builds, but I'd rather have more functionality/flexibility than less. Speaking of ropes, the Hook Launcher also got a bit of tweaking so that it works with the new rope resizing code.
The other part I think people will be excited about is the Flex Light. It's based on the Flex Panel (which also got a couple separate improvements), and it should be a nice improvement for making glowy lines/etc without having to use weird tricks/etc.
There were a number of other tweaks, particularly regarding part masses. There are a few more parts I'd like to add, but they aren't too important, and at this point I need to move on, so they'll be shuffled off 'til an update beyond the big campaign changes.
There's a lot to do for the campaign, and I'm not sure what I'll work on next. I need to do some AI enemies, but there are so many maps/missions to create that I may do a few of those first. Either way, I would expect this to the be last significant update for a bit.